Isai. xli. 14 — 16. Fear not, thou worm Jacob, and ye men of Israel ; I ivill help thee, saith the Lord, and thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel. Behold, I will make thee a new sharp threshing instrument, having teeth : thou shalt thresh the mountains, and beat them small, and shalt make the hills as chaff: thou shalt fan them, and the wind shall carry them away, and the whirlwind shall scatter them : and thou shalt rejoice in the Lord, and shalt glory in the Holy One of Israel.
TO comfort and encourage the weak is among the first duties of a minister. The command of God to
all his servants is, to strengthen the weak hands, and confirm the feeble knees, and dispel the fears of the desponding, with an assurance, that their God will come and save thema. This is an office executed by our blessed Lord, who " carries the lambs in his bosom, and gently leads them that are with young V The delight which the Father himself also takes in raising up the drooping minds of his people, appears eminently in this, that he frequently addresses them in terms which they, through despondency, would use to characterize themselves ; and then under those very characters assures them of his most favourable regards. This is particularly conspicuous in the passage before us, where, addressing his people, he declares,
I. Their character —
[The name of a "worm " as applied to our blessed Lord, de- notes his low and abject condition during his abode on earth0: but, as applied to us, it rather represents our weakness and insufficiency for any thing that is good. In this sense it does indeed most justly mark our character : for there is no creature less capable of active exertion than a worm, or less able to effect any material good : and certainly our inability to perform that which is good is extreme ; for we not only cannot of our- selves do a good action d, but we cannot even speak a good worde, or think a good thought f. God himself must give us both to will and to do g, and must work all our good works in us. As rational beings we have yet a considerable portion of the Divine image upon us ; but as moral agents, " we are very far gone from original righteousness," and are altogether " dead in trespasses and sins ;" nor have we any more power to renovate ourselves, than " an Ethiopian has to change his complexion, or a leopard his spots'1."]
II. Their labours —
[Notwithstanding our utter impotence, we have an im- mensely difficult work to perform : " the worm Jacob " is re- quired to " thresh mountains," and to reduce them all to dust: though himself liable to be crushed beneath the smallest clod, he must address himself to this mighty task. There were to all human appearance insurmountable obstacles to the progress
a Isai. xxxv. 3, 4. b Isai. xl. 11. c Ps. xxii. 6.
d John xv. 5. e Matt. xii. 34. f 2 Cor. hi. 5.
s Phil. ii. 13. h Jer. xiii. 23.